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I replaced Next.js for my application with this module πŸ”₯

Anthony Max on May 25, 2025

TL;DR Yes, I understand that you will immediately have doubts about what I am saying, because "How can you change what Spotify, OpenAI a...
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Best Codes β€’

You do realize that this is deceptive, right?

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The folder size on your device might be smaller, but you still have to load resources from the URLs when the page loads.

Plus, the actual output of a Next.js build is much smaller than the size of the folder. Dependencies are tree-shook, compiled, minified, etc.

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Data with Johnson β€’

Peak find πŸ”

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Anthony Max β€’ β€’ Edited

Hello! The fact that the script's are connected like this does not give anything. I am not going to lie about this - it is pointless. If I had installed them it would have been not 3.6mb, but 3.7mb - it would not have changed anything. As for the Next.js assembly, I do not argue, it is not 300 mb, but it also weighs normally. Imagine, one normal application has about several thousand modules, to make a normal site - this is literally gigabytes of disk space.

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Anthony Max β€’

Thank you very much for your comment! I changed the code and loaded the modules. It turned out to be 4.4mb instead of 3.6mb, so that there would be no feeling that I was misleading. This topic has been discussed for a long time on Alpine.js and HTMX, you can take their examples. There is no point in repeating myself. This is only a possible alternative in some tasks.

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Nevo David β€’

Wow, been thinking about framework bloat myself - you actually switched it up and got a lean setup, respect.

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Anthony Max β€’

Thank you! Yes, modules bloat the project a lot.

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Evgenii Kalkutin β€’

Are you a a bot? I see you commenting on every post LOL

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Dotallio β€’

Love seeing someone actually ditch the usual framework bloat and prove it works - makes me rethink SSR vs CSR for my smaller projects. Curious, what limitations did you hit with HMPL compared to Next.js in a real-world scenario?

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Andrew β€’

If it worked in 2010 why shouldn't it work in 2025? What's to prove here?

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Anthony Max β€’

Serious projects like Spotify will be very difficult to build, but simple landings and modules for real projects are quite possible. That's the difficulty.

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Rajkumar V β€’ β€’ Edited

Great breakdown of the early experience with Next.jsβ€”especially the realistic look at how quickly project size can escalate even before significant development begins.
[ I appreciate the honesty around installation weight and the practical insight into what happens when you start adding state managers like RTK Query or building more components. It’s something many devs overlook until the project starts ballooning.

Refer Style Guide - Click here ](rkoots.github.io/styleguide/)

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Ankit Rattan β€’

Well! This is interesting.

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Anthony Max β€’

I think so too :)

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Ankit Rattan β€’

I recently moved to NextJS (fully) and just posted nextjs pros over reactjs. And just after I got yours this post. Another minor shift to use this new module ig πŸ˜„.

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David Bussell β€’

Good article! Web components are also said to be good

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Anthony Max β€’

Thank you! Yea.

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Anonymous β€’

Nice!

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lucas-brdt268 β€’

Good discussion! Thank you for your effort.

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nadeem zia β€’

excellent work

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Anthony Max β€’

Thanks!

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nadeem zia β€’

Good information provided

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Anthony Max β€’

In fact, the result is quite surprising to me for small applications.

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lucas-brdt268 β€’

Good discussion! Thank you for your effort.